Ra.One: Majority of the marketing costs for Ra.One is already recovered: Kamal Jain, Eros International

In an interview with ET Now , Kamal Jain , CFO, Eros International , talks about the various marketing strategies for Ra.One and how Eros intends to recover marketing spend on the movie. Excerpts:

ET Now: Ra.One is probably one of the most expensive movies that you have made till now. How much is it that you shelled out for music rights, brand deals? Lay out the finances for us?

Kamal Jain: Ra.One is one of the most anticipated films across the nation. This is one of the biggest events this country would ever see as it is not only the movie. This movie is one of the best marketed movies and there are a lot of firsts around this movie. This is one of the widest releases ever the Indian audiences would see. We have started marketing pretty early, as early as in the month of January this year. We broke the first look forward G.One on second of January. Since then every month we have seen some kind of marketing events around the film. We did a very big music launch for the same. The marketing spend that happened around the film is really big and the same has been very effectively subsidised through the big brand tie-ups, which has happened around the film. More than 25 brands have been tied up with the film, which has garnered us a monetisation in the range of about Rs 50-52 crores.

This has really helped us in terms of subsidising the overall marketing spend on the film. Apart from that, this film is going to be a wide release. We are doing it in more than 3000 screens in India and more than 500 screens overseas. So, it is somewhere between 3500-4000 screens worldwide release for the film, which by far miles ahead of the largest releases before this. This is one of the biggest ever release this country would see, so much so that in overseas also, we are releasing this film. Many firsts for this film like for example in South Korea, we are releasing this film in more than 300 screens and in New Zealand about 25 screens. Apart from that, this film is getting released in 3D as well for almost 500 screens in India and more than 50 screens overseas.

So, I guess this is going to be the one of the best marketed film and the best released film this country would ever see with the biggest brand this country has as SRK is associated with this. There is a lot of anticipation around the film. As far as the investments are concerned, we generally do not speak about the cost of the film. The rumours in terms of that this film is the most expensive and the kind of numbers, which are floating around, we deny those numbers. This is much lesser than whatever is going into the market. Apart from that as Eros has a conscious strategy to de-risk a business model through pre-licensing the film before the film gets to the theatre. Accordingly we tried to recover between 40-80% of investments in any film. We have to recover most of our costs in the film as marketing costs have been already recovered through the brand tie-ups. We have pre-licensed our satellite rights and the music rights. So, majority of the cost is already recovered.

Kamal Jain: I would not give a number to it but a large portion of it has been recovered already. Strategically, we try to recover 40-80% of any film before the movie gets to the theatre. So, following the same strategy, majority of the costs is already recovered. Whatever monetisation we would do through theatrical would be certainly a big bonus for us and as anticipated this film will be big in terms of numbers. Coming days would show this because it has a five-day weekend and the kind of pricing we are putting around the film would be a little extended. This is because of the 3D version. So, it is going to be big and we are really anticipating very positively for the film.

ET Now: What about post release? Do you gain money from the ticket sales or are you likely to make incremental gains on music, merchandising which will come up in say in the next three weeks? Is that something that is an avenue as well and if so, how large would these portions be?

Kamal Jain: This is a film, which has been extensively monetised across various platforms, Many firsts for this film. We have done a gaming deal for the film through Sony PSP. There is a McDonald tie-up through which we are doing the entire merchandising. So many monetisation avenues are there, which are built across this film for the first time, and which is also helping us in terms of increasing the further monetisation of the film apart from the basic monetisation, which is theatrical.